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New house price data released on Friday seemed to suggest that sanity was returning to the market – but there was little sign of that at one London development, where a studio flat in Battersea power station that sold for close to £1m in the spring is about to go back on the market with a price tag of up to £1.5m. And it has not even been built yet.

The number of mortgages being granted by Britain's banks has fallen by 16% over the last year - the latest sign of a slowdown in the housing market.
According to the banking industry body the BBA, in October home-buyers had 37,076 mortgages approved - the lowest figure for 17 months.
The value of those mortgages fell 13% over the year to just over £6bn.

Home buyers over the age of 40 are increasingly being "frozen out" of mortgages , the industry is warning.
New rules mean that lenders are now restricting loans to anyone who will still be paying off their mortgage by the time they retire.
And yet many people cannot afford to buy a home until they are 40 or even 50, say some of the largest lenders.

House price growth picked up to 12.1% in the year to the end of September, official figures show, despite other surveys suggesting a slowdown.
The rate increased from 11.7% year-on-year growth the previous month, the Office for National Statistics said, with prices rising fastest in London.

The rising cost of private rents will push future generations into poverty and add billions to the housing benefit bill, according to social policy charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
The charity's report says that by 2040, people who rent will be more than twice as likely to be living in poverty than homeowners.
Joseph Rowntree expects rental costs to rise 90%, twice as fast as income.

Continued low interest rates and mortgage market competition has led to another fall in the number of homes repossessed in the UK, figures show.
There were 5,000 homes repossessed in the third quarter of the year, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said.
This compared with 5,400 in the previous three months and 7,200 in the same quarter last year.

A dip in activity in the UK housing market and slowing property prices will only be "temporary", surveyors say.
Demand from new buyers slowed for the fourth consecutive month in October, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) said.

A buyer has been found for New Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, London's deputy mayor for police and crime has said.
Stephen Greenhalgh said the proceeds of the sale would be reinvested in frontline policing.
The office block near Victoria station has housed the Met since 1967, but is being sold off as part of a cost-cutting effort.

News and blog
News and Blog
2014
November 2014
13 November 2014
National Grid teams up with developer to build 14,000 new homes
National Grid teams up with developer to build 14,000 new homes
Energy transmission network operator National Grid and house builder Berkeley Group have announced a joint-venture to build up to 14,000 homes at redundant gasholder and other sites in London and the South East by 2030.
The 50:50 joint-venture, called St William Homes, plans to commit some £700m in funding towards the redevelopment of 20 brownfield sites owned by National Grid.

A new collection of data maps of London reveals a city heaving with information.
A quick quiz question for you. How many football pitches could fit inside the Greater London boundary? Well, 220,000 of them would fill the space between Cockfosters and Croydon, Heathrow and Hornchurch.
That statistic is just one of thousands of facts and figures contained in a new book about London, which according to its creators is the most data-heavy capital of the world.

A drop in mortgage lending to first-time buyers signals a dip in confidence among those intending to buy a home, according to mortgage brokers.
The number of loans approved to first-time buyers stood at 26,800 in September, the latest figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) show.

London's Gherkin skyscraper has been sold to investment giant the Safra Group in a deal reportedly worth £726m. BBC News spoke to a consultancy firm ahead of the sale to gauge how much the capital's iconic skyline might now be worth.

The Gherkin, one of the most distinctive buildings on London's skyline, has been bought by a Brazilian billionaire.
Joseph Safra is reported to have paid more than £700m for the 180 metre tower, which is officially known as 30 St Mary Axe, its street address.
The Norman Foster-designed building was completed in 2004 for Swiss Re.
The insurer sold the building in 2006 at the height of the last property boom for £600m.

An opportunity to buy a well-equipped, self-contained farm with 317 acres of land that suits mixed or dairy/arable farming has arisen with the sale of Barnhills Farm, Kirkcolm, near Stranraer.
The coastal farm is being run as an arable and beef enterprise, but is also renowned as an excellent dairy farm, said agent Matthew Bell of H&H Land and Property.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has allowed on appeal a 550-home, mixed-use development on farmland near four Grade II-listed buildings at Ramsgate Kent, in an area without a demonstrable five year supply of deliverable housing land.
The outline application had been turned down by Thanet District Council.
Developer East Kent Opportunities and Rosefarm Estates PLC proposals also involved up to 63,000 square metres of office space and a local district centre with convenience retail and community healthcare facilities.

The Treasury has agreed a ground-breaking deal with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) over new powers for the organisation and the establishment of a new directly-elected mayor for the Greater Manchester area who will have strategic planning powers.
These will give the Mayor the power to create a statutory spatial framework for the city region, which will act as the framework for managing planning across Greater Manchester, and will need to be approved by unanimous vote of the Mayor’s Cabinet. This will be in line with the strategy currently being developed by the GMCA.